PTR Notes: Cheat Death insanely buffed, mobs' fear nerfed

Yesterday a new build went live on the patch 2.3 PTRs, including some pretty big stuff. Some of these things we knew were coming in some form, but since they hadn't been seen on the PTR yet we didn't know the specific details. The ever-reliable Boubouille of MMO-Champion has the details. The most significant changes (in my opinion) are:

[Druid] If you are in a shapeshift form and try to use an ability that may only be used in caster form, you will leave the form and use that ability. This means that you can shift from one form to another in one action. If you don't have mana to shift form, you will get an error message and remain in your current form. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0.

[Hunter] Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds.

[Priest] If you are in Shadowform and try to use an ability that my not be used in Shadowform, you will leave Shadowform and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0

[Rogue] Cheat Death (Subtlety) chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% [up from 10/20/30%] and now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.

Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets.

Bolding and underlining are not tools I use lightly, but holy jumping monkeys did you see that Cheat Death change?! If I'm reading this correctly (and I've never had the talent, so it's possible I'm not), this says that with 3/3 talent points, Cheat Death will confer on the rogue a 100% chance to "completely avoid any damaging attack that would otherwise kill you" (as the talent is worded), as well as reducing all damage taken by 90% for 3 seconds, on a one-minute cooldown. Take that, suddenly-raid-viable Ret pallies! Sub rogues now can't die unless they receive a deathblow more than once in a minute!

The fear change is also quite a big deal. It seems to mean, among other things, tanks shouldn't lose aggro when feared anymore, so you won't need to stance dance to avoid getting feared while tanking. Onyxia just got considerably easier; too bad she's irrelevant these days. Also, the Priest talent "Unbreakable Will" will no longer be a liability. Anyway, read on for the full list of changes.

General

Silence effects now have diminishing returns when used on PvP targets.

You can now obtain a tiny Sporebat pet with exalted Sporeggar faction.

An Azure Whelp pet now drops from the blue dragonkin in Azshara.

If you are seated and try to use abilities that require you to be standing, you will stand up and use them. This can be disabled with: /console autoStand 0 .

Racial Abilities

Humans: Sword Skill now increases the critical strike chance with swords and two-handed swords by 1%.

Orcs: Axe Skill now increases the critical strike chance with axes and two-handed axes by 1%.

Arenas

The top ranked team of each battlegroup for each format will receive a new unique title for the end of Season 2 called "Merciless Gladiator".

Druids

If you are in a shapeshift form and try to use an ability that may only be used in caster form, you will leave the form and use that ability. This means that you can shift from one form to another in one action. If you don't have mana to shift form, you will get an error message and remain in your current form. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0

Hunters

Aimed Shot (Marksmanship) now reduces healing done to that target by 50% for 10 seconds.

Mages

Arcane Missiles: Players will no longer get strange error messages when casting this spell at evading targets. The spell will simply fail.

Spellsteal: It is no longer possible via this spell to get two Forbearance debuffs at the same time.

Paladins

Paladin seals no longer have a low chance to be dispelled if you have 3 points in Sanctified Seals.

Judgement of Wisdom: It is no longer possible for the mana energize effect to trigger off of reapplication of the Judgement of Wisdom.

Divine Favor: When this ability is cast immediately after a critical heal, it will no longer be removed incorrectly.

Fanaticism (Retribution) now also reduces threat caused by all actions by 6/12/18/24/30%.

Precision (Protection) now increases spell hit chance as well.

Seal of Vengeance: The bonus damage this ability dealt when the debuff is fully stacked on the target was incorrectly too low. It is now increased.

Spiritual Attunement: This ability will now gain mana properly from Vampiric Embrace heals.

Priests

Starshards: The damage per tick of this ability no longer changes during the duration of the effect.

If you are in Shadowform and try to use an ability that my not be used in Shadowform, you will leave Shadowform and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0

Mind Soothe: This spell will now consume Inner Focus.

Rogues

Cheat Death (Subtlety) chance to trigger increased to 33/66/100% and now also causes the rogue to take 90% less damage for 3 seconds when the effect triggers. This effect cannot occur more than once per minute.

Sap: Multiple Saps placed by multiple Rogues will now be handled correctly in all cases.

If you are in Stealth and try to use an ability that may not be used while stealthed, you will leave stealth and use that ability. This can be disabled with /console autoUnshift 0

Blade Flurry: This ability now works correctly in all cases with shielded targets.

Cold Blood: Fixed an issue where this buff was sometimes getting removed when an attack missed.

Soul Siphon (Affliction): If a Warlock already has a particular spell cast on a target, reapplying before its duration ends will no longer grant an additional bonus.

Warriors

Sweeping Strikes: This ability now works correctly in all cases with shielded targets.

Professions

All primary profession trainers outside of capitals (Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring) have been changed to train up to Artisan level (skill level 300) in their respective professions.

The capital cities now possess Artisan level trainers for the primary professions they support, and are surrounded by their newly-dubbed Apprentices where applicable. Please visit your local Master trainer when you wish to train.

Alchemy

Added a new potion to alchemy trainers: Mad Alchemist's Potion. This new potion requires Alchemy to consume.

Blacksmithing

Sharpening Stones and Weightstones now last 1 hour.

Cooking

Reduced the maximum skill obtainable from recipes between 200 and 300. This does not include Outland recipes.

Added a new enchant shield recipe to trainers that increases resilience.

Engineering

Cogspinner Gearcutter in Ironforge and Sovik in Orgrimmar now sell the schematic for the Steam Tonk Controller in a limited supply.

Materials required to create the Steam Tonk Controller have been reduced. To reflect the reduced requirements, the maximum skill gain has also been reduced somewhat.

Plans for a new arrow making device can be found from Sunfury Archers.

The plans for adamantite shells now create an Adamantite Shell Machine. The machine creates 200 high quality bullets at a time, with 5 charges per item.

Fishing

You can now fish in Ironforge again.

Herbalism

Fel Blossoms are now unbound, but have an additional requirement of 275 herbalism to use.

Leatherworking

Increased the range at which you can gain leatherworking skill from crafting drums.

Reduced the faction required to obtain Drums of Battle and Drums of Panic.

Drums can now be used while shapeshifted.

A new recipe is available from Grand Master leatherworking trainers to make a 20 slot bag to hold leatherworking supplies.

The ogres in the barrier hills are rumored to have a pattern for a 24 slot bag to hold leatherworking supplies.

Items

Atiesh: This item can no longer open portals in battlegrounds.

Essence of Death now drops from level 57-60 non-elite undead in the Eastern Plaguelands.

The Felsworn Gas Mask will now work when you put it on while mounted.

Libram of Saints Departed: This relic now functions properly again.

Dungeons and Raids

The Requirement for Heroic Keys has been lowered to Honored.

Tempest Keep

The use of Ice Block, Divine Shield, Cloak of Shadows, and other similar spells and abilities will no longer prematurely detonate High Astromancer Solarian's Wrath of the Astromancer spell.

Mechanar

Nethermancer Sepethrea's Frost Attack now reduces movement speed by 25% rather than 50%.

Quests

Quest givers who have available daily quests will have a blue exclamation point instead of a yellow one.

The range of the Battery Recharging Blaster used in the quest, "Recharging the Batteries" has been increased.

Interface

Sorting of auction house searches has been simplified so you can only sort by one column, and automatic sub-sorts have been created for those columns to be as useful as possible. In addition, sorting is now done on the server so as you page thru results, items will appear to be sorted across the entire results instead of just the page you're looking at.

If you get a message "Interface action failed because of an AddOn", this means that an AddOn interfered with the Blizzard UI in some way. To diagnose this, enter the following into chat "/console taintLog 1" and restart the game and try to reproduce it. If you reproduce it, you can quit the game and search through the file Logs\taint.log for the word "blocked" and mail the log to the author of the AddOn listed there. Once you have done this you can turn off logging by entering the following into chat "/console taintLog 0"

All players now have a tracking bubble on their minimap. From that menu you can select a specific type of vendor or npc to look for or you can select a specific tracking type if your character has tracking. Yes this means that hunters can take all of those tracking buttons off of their action bars.

There are now options for displaying health and mana values on your health/mana bars for you/your party and to display that information either as percentages or as numbers.

When you are possessing a target (Priest Mind Control, Eyes of the Beast, using a Steam Tonk, etc), you now get their action bar as your primary action bar rather than having a mini action bar above your normal action bar.

When an item drops that you cannot loot due to uniqueness or other factor, you will get a chat message letting you know what the item was that you passed rolling on.

The raid panels that have been pulled out into the gamefield should save their option settings between sessions now.

If a player is looting a corpse and there are one or more items on it that player cannot loot, the player will still be able to see those items (although not able to loot them). This only is for green or better quality items. The cases this should affect are for the profession recipes that only a player of that profession can loot or when master looter is on and there is a threshold or better item on the corpse.

NPC's with level appropriate quests will now always appear on your minimap as yellow exclamation points. NPC's that have quests that you have completed will now display as yellow question marks instead of yellow dots. In addition flight masters that you have not yet gotten the flight point for will display on the minimap as a green exclamation point.

Npc's will display an icon on mouseover that gives a more specific indicator of their function rather than just a gossip bubble. Questgivers will now show a question mark as their in game mouseover, Innkeepers will show a hearthstone as their in game mouseover and so on.

You can now pull the list of players in a channel out into the gamefield by clicking and dragging the channel name onto the gamefield. This list will show all the players in the channel sorted by voice chat status.

Voice chat will now display the nameplate for who is talking when you are in a chat group. Currently it only displays the nameplate when you are in a party/raid.

When multiple people are talking in a voice chat session, it will show the names of up to four people who are talking at the same time.

Many On Use items now display the cooldown in the item tooltip.

World Environment

Creature AI has been changed to no longer prioritize attacking unfeared targets over feared targets.

Bug Fixes

Reverse cooldowns are correctly refreshed when a buff is reapplied by another player.